Trip Date: 2017-02-27

Trip #50

GPS: Address: 5025 Pattison; 63110 (at Kingshighway and I-44)

Search Words: Chocolate Factory Tours

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Surprisingly, Saint Louis has a high concentration of award winning chocolate makers; probably due to our immigrant roots. There are many chocolate destinations worth visiting in Saint Louis, but the Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate Company has the “best” chocolate tour in Saint Louis for kids, only because it’s the shortest and the sweetest, and thus the easiest for busy families to visit. This is a 20 minute “tour” with a piece of chocolate waiting at the end. The tour is free. Over 50,000 people come from all over the world visit this chocolate factory every year.

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Drive to the GPS address at Pattison Avenue listed above, and wind around to the front lobby, which is right up against the highway. Inside awaits an oasis of delights.

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Tours launch every 30 minutes from the spacious ‘Chocolate Shoppe’, and everyone is required to wear a “hairnet,” which doubles as a rather cool souvenir. Guests get a little giddy as they gather, and then enter through the doors marked “Chocolate Heaven”.

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Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate is a third generation family business started by the Abel family in 1981, near the famous Ted Drewes ice cream stand on Route 66. They moved to the current location in 2012 in order to accommodate their expanding business. This is a Greek family who got their start with help from another Greek family, and are thus now continuing the American Dream.

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Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate uses the term “clean chocolate” to describe their products. Listen carefully when they list their ingredients: chocolate is sourced from the Ivory Coast, vanilla comes from Madagascar, sugar from Belize. Anything worth doing, like making chocolate, is worth doing well, and making fine chocolate is harder than it looks.

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Take special note of the solar panels on the roof, the LED lights throughout the factory floor, and the Goodwill employees to packaging the finished chocolates. Ask about the creation of jobs, as local jobs increase the multiplier effect of money — basically meaning that money circulates throughout the local economy instead of whooshing away and into the pockets of people who are already rich. Handcrafted local chocolate is an example of “Slow Food”; every chocolate you buy brings you closer to a “Less but Better” world.

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Keep an eye out for Oompa Loompas on the factory floor.

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Back inside the “Chocolate Shoppe”, be sure to ask about specialties and sample any award winning chocolates. Also ask which holiday drives the most sales. Don’t miss the “Oops Shelf” which is full of perfectly imperfect chocolates.

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The science of happiness is a relatively new field, but it’s really, really true that some things make you happy. It’s not the weather, or your salary, or your kids that make you happy, but rather flowers, dinner with friends and adventures to new places that bring happiness. Take your friends and family on a tour of a chocolate factory, and follow Green Spiral Tours in enjoying all the goodness that Saint Louis has to offer.